There are these moments in life where the idea that history repeats itself crashes into you. The moments in your life where "you'll understand when you're older" is proven to be both accurate, and a soul crushing burden to bear. The gravity of lifetimes of decisions, successes, failures, joy, and sorrow all intersecting in a single moment.
When you realize that the history of your life is repeating before your eyes, and the roles are reversed, and you're standing on the edge of who you are and who you want to be.
"You'll understand when you're older"
What's to understand? Was it a failure, or a success? Were you a victim or a beneficiary?
In my life, I have found the vast majority of people to take it as a justification to harden their hearts and avoid empathy. That when you come to the age at which you would understand why the decisions were made, you would be able to justify the harm you cause by the harm inflicted on you.
I miss Jim.
Jim was an older, white, conservative Christian from the American mid west. The first time I met Jim he seemed odd and goofy, but also sincere and incredibly good hearted. He was the future father in law of a close friend of mine, but we were just kids in highschool so that was still a but off.
At some point my friend told jim about my struggles at home and the next time I saw him he took me aside and let me know that if I ever needed a place to stay I could count on him. It wasn't long after that, that I gave him a call and took him up on the offer.
Jim wasn't by any means perfect, but he was sincerely interested in making sure I had the right heading in life given my introduction to adulthood. One day. A few months after I'd started living with Jim, we were out for a drive and I asked him what compelled him to take a kid like me in.
He explained that when he was younger and he was struggling, someone had taken him in and had shared essentially the same story. And now he was paying the debt he owed for being helped, by helping me. "And I expect someday if you find yourself capable of helping someone, you will."
Jim passed away some years ago now. I didn't get to say goodbye. I only lived with Jim for three or four months. But he spoke to me and taught me more about what it meant to be a good person than my father ever did.
I miss the relationship that ended today.
Even though it really ended months ago and were only just now admitting it to ourselves and eachother, but that doesn't mean there isn't love. It's just different.
When you build a life with someone, you really wish that they are there to enjoy the fruits of your joined labour. But sometimes people are too sick to be able to appreciate the fruits of the labour, or to enjoy them. Sometimes you look out for people because you built a life together and even though the romance is gone, a family unit still exists. We spent a lifetime together. There is no hate are malice. Only a longing to see a person buried under so much illness thrive when they're freed from the shackles of their own mind.
So I'm watching myself relive my own history. And I'm choosing to repay a debt. I'm choosing to face the same challenges faced by those who come before me, and I'm choosing to understand now that I'm older. And I'm choosing to do what I believe is right regardless of how much people worry that I am hurting myself, Because I understand now that I'm older, And I understand that making the same mistakes for the same fears is not only understanding, but cowardice.
I choose to understand, and I choose to bear the burden of doing better.
It is painful
It is exhausting
It is how I grieve
